Bolavan plateau

The Bolavan plateau lies outside Pakse to the east, along the way to Vietnam.  It’s known for its scenery, its excellent tea and coffee growing conditions, and the still prevalent UXO.  It’s definitely not an area to leave the beaten track without a guide!

Waterfalls 1 and 2

We started our day on the plateau by viewing two waterfalls – they were impressively noisy and powerful in the dry season; in the in the wet season they merge into one and water roars over the cliff and down the 120m drop!

There were some very tempting (and incredibly comfortable) hammocks well set up for viewing the falls, but R, A and I resolutely turned our backs on them and went on a short (3km) but very steep bushwalk – it took us about 90minutes to complete, and we were working hard (to not fall off the plateau!) most of the way!  Along the way we saw an amazing pompom beetle!

Check out those antennas!!
(thanks to A for the photo)

We finished our bushwalk, and met up with L, at our third waterfall for the day.  This one we voted overall the most scenic – but we had a few more to go through yet today!

Waterfall 3

Our fourth waterfall was much wider, and looked like it would be most impressive in the wet season with much greater amounts of water cascading over it.

Waterfall 4

At waterfall 4 we also achieved a four-person selfie!  Not an easy thing to do - partly because it's just hard to fit everyone in and partly because of the kind people who mean to be helpful and offer to take the photo for us.  Don't they know we are being trendy!! ;-)

My arms aren't long enough!

The last waterfall for today was small and tight.  We were there at the same time as a happy party of university students from Vientiane, who were having a ball taking photos and seemingly ignoring any educational element, and some monks who fed fish.

Waterfall 5

We visited a tea plantation: the mature but stunted trees (kept short so that the tender leaves are easy to pick) look so strange, like overgrown bonsai trees.  This plantation also dries and processes its leaves in two ways – green or oolong style – and offers its visitors samples before they leave (a great marketing ploy!).

Tee trees, interspersed with fruit trees to shade the tender new tea leaves

The appropriately-shaped leaf cutter - to me it looks like a cup and saucer!!

Arabica and Robusta beans are grown on the Bolavan plateau, as well as a wild tree.  Most of the crop had been harvested and was drying in the sun – as we drove past villages we often also saw a small crop drying out.  It’s significantly better for growers to process (dry and hull) the beans before selling them to traders, but most small growers don’t have the capacity to do so and sell the whole dried cherry instead.

Native coffee cherries to be harvested shortly

Coffee air drying before being sold to traders